1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed to a musical computer keyboard. More specifically, the present invention is directed to an apparatus and method to change the mode of computer keyboard use from alph-anumeric language orientation to become a musical input keyboard where the keys change meaning for this purpose.
2. Description of Related Art
In the past, the control of and performance of computer synthesized music and/or computer actuated acoustic musical instruments has been achieved principally via traditional music input devices which are externally coupled to the computer. Typically, these are external piano or organ keyboards which communicate with a computer using a standardized communication protocol such as the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI).
MIDI is a standard protocol for the interchange of musical information between musical instruments, synthesizers and computers. It defines the codes for a musical event, which includes the start of a note, the pitch, length, volume, and musical attributes.
With external keyboard systems, however, a user who wishes to generate music using a computer must make a large economic investment in the tools necessary to do so. For example, the user must purchase a MIDI enabled piano or organ keyboard, a MIDI card for insertion into his/her computer, software for use with the MIDI card, and possibly even the computer itself. Thus, users must make a large capital investment via multiple pieces of hardware and software in order to input extemporaneous musical notes into a computer where sounds can then be generated, the notes be edited, and the like.
The present state of the art is that sounds, music and/or musical arrangements on computers can be edited and modified using Language Based Typing and/or Character Commands (LBT/CC), Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs), and/or Mouse Based (MB) functions along with music editing software. With such music editing software, the editing functions typically include a user perceiving a representation of the music on a display (such as in the form of a waveform or a musical score) and making modifications to the music by selecting portions of the representation and issuing modifying commands to the music editing software to thereby modify the selected portion of the music. While such music editing software does allow the user to input and modify music with or without an external instrument, the process is too cumbersome to be of extemporaneous or real-time performance use since it is done via LBT/CC language based typing, GUI manipulation, or MB manipulation.
Computer keyboard use to play musical notes into a computer has been implemented in the past, such that the implementation and advantages of the present invention can be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art.
The two major drawbacks of previous embodiments within the art have been: 1) the limitation of mapping of the keys to mimic traditional instruments, and/or: 2) key mapping that is easy to understand, but difficult to play.
On drawback 1, the mimicking of traditional instrument layouts onto the computer keyboard creates obvious inefficiencies in the use of keys. A simple explanatory analogy would be the proverbial xe2x80x9clike putting a square peg into a round holexe2x80x9d. Most typically, it is the piano keyboard layout that is mimicked, as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,066,795, 5,646,648, 4,704,940, and 4,352,313. Thus, a selected row of keys is used like the xe2x80x9cwhite keysxe2x80x9d of a piano or organ, and where there would be a xe2x80x9cblack keyxe2x80x9d on the piano keyboard the keyboard key just above and in-between the mapped xe2x80x9cwhite keysxe2x80x9d are used, and where there are no xe2x80x9cblack keysxe2x80x9d on the piano keyboard these keys are not used. U.S. Pat. No. 5,036,745 mimics a woodwind layout, for yet another instrument example. The obvious drawback of this approach is that it severely limits the potential octave range of the keyboard in its fixed state: i.e. without using command keys in real time to shift the resultant limited range up or down to achieve some reasonable octave span. This renders such embodiments unfit for much use beyond solo voicing or novelty value.
As for the second prior art drawback mentioned above, some musical computer keyboard implementations aim to make it easy to know or remember where notes are placed by mapping them sequentially across rows. A simple analogy of this strategy would be to imagine a typewriter keyboard mapping which followed the alphabet from left to right across rows. In the case of musical note layout, this simplicity is a high price to pay for the awkward playability that results. Examples are U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,088,378, 4,704,940, and 4,655,117, where the musical notes are merely sequentially placed across rows. U.S. Pat. No. 5,088,378 is notable as to drawback 1 as well, in that it essentially mimics an accordion where the left hand plays the xe2x80x9cbass chordxe2x80x9d and the right hand a melody based on a simple but awkward escalation of notes across rows.
Given the above limitations, external MIDI connected piano and organ keyboards still dominate the art. While the above mentioned patents demonstrate that using a computer keyboard is inherently plausible, the note mapping used fails to provide enough octave range or finger motion fluidity to make such methods or apparatus viable as real musical instruments that people will take the time to learn, master, and use as a matter of choice.
The present invention provides an apparatus and method to change the mode of computer keyboard use from alpha-numeric language orientation to become a musical input keyboard where the keys change meaning for this purpose. The present invention implements a unique musical mapping for a standard computer keyboard such that the musical notes that are most often used in musical composition are mapped to be on or near the keys of a home row of the standard keyboard. Musical notes that are the next most often utilized in musical composition are mapped to keys in the rows above and below the home row. All other musical notes are mapped based on their relative probability of being used in combination with the notes mapped in the home row and the rows above and below the home row.